Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Recycling paper, London Style

The Metro is an excellent free newspaper handed out every morning at London stations. Everyone seems to enjoy it, it gets handed round in offices and - rather than being thrown on the floor - they get left on the seats for the next person to read.

I don't travel on the Underground much, and eagle eyed newshounds will notice that the story that London and South East water companies are applying for hosepipe bans because of low water levels was in last week.However, I do think that the Underground is deep in the London psyche, which is why I have Going Underground in my crucial London Links.

I like the circle of light in the back of each seat. My memories of the London underground include one of the longest escalators I had ever seen. Also the slats in the escalator were wooden. My impression was that the underground was way underground.

Eric, this is about this story: the whole of London and South East is going to have restrictions placed on water use to make using a hose to water gardens or wash cars illegal. The reason? Two successive dry winters... and 35% of our water leaks out of the pipes.

Denton, The Underground goes overground quite a bit. I'd have posted a link to a map showing the overground bits, but London Transport has been getting very arsey and is trying to stop any non-authorised publications, including on the web. This was taken on the Central Line, around Hangar Lane.

Bob said ... (13:31) :

Here's what I liked about the Underground: "Mind the Gap" - so polite. In DC, they are interviewing new voices for the Metro, for a more authoritarian sound, to get people off of the train faster. They say they are wasting 45 seconds per station ...

Unfortuately, if one gets on at Epping (end of the central line for your out-of-London visitors), you have to be quick if you want to reuse a newspaper, because a little man with gloves, a picky-uppy-stick (whatever they are called), and a large plastic sack, descends to clean up as soon as people get off.

I once asked him for one of the newspapers he'd cleared into his sack, but he refused, saying 'the Health and Safety rules' forbade him giving anything already picked up back to anyone.

Another time I asked him whether papers and cardboard drinks containers in his sack got recycled. "No lady, they go in the bin!" he replied. I wasn't very impressed...

Great shot Ham.We get that paper up here aswell--funny but I always thought it was local for some reason--well you live and learn! Thanks again for looking after my blog while I was away.Hope to do the same for you some time.